In the Tamil Nadu Engineering Admissions (TNEA) 2026 rank list released on Wednesday, 52 students have secured the perfect cut-off score of 200, a huge drop compared to 144 last year.
The merit list also threw up a sharp drop in cut-off marks, going up to 10 marks. While at the top, the difference has been small, the bands in the mid-section have experienced clustering. This means that seats in top-ranking colleges would have less competition while those in mid-level institutions in terms of popularity and ranking will have more students competing for them.
“Students will be happy that they will be able to get the same seats for much lower cut-off marks compared to last year,” said Ashwin Rajagopal, an independent career counsellor. Giving an example, Mr. Ashwin said that students with a cut-off of 138 marks will find themselves eligible for seats that students with a cut-off of 148 marks got last year. Higher up the list, those scoring 198 this year would get seats that students scoring 199 got last year. In numbers, 1,511 students scored 199 last year, while this year, 505 students will compete for the same set of seats, after having scored 198. “This would put a smile on their faces,” Mr. Ashwin added.
In a video shared on social media, Jayaprakash Gandhi, career consultant and analyst, stated that last year, 13,958 students scored cut-off above 190 marks while this year, only 6,627 scored the same. Lower down the list, 1,19,537 students scored 150 last year while this year, 90,991 students scored the same cut-off. There is a drop in the total number of eligible candidates for counselling in the general academic category as well. Last year, 2,39,299 took part in the process while this year, the number is 2,33,812. Also, in the first round last year, students who secured 179 marks and above were called for counselling whereas this year, the cut off stood at 171.333.
Releasing the rank list, Higher Education Minister P. Viswanathan said that this year, 19,657 additional seats have been added. The final number of seats available would be known after Anna University’s Centre for Affiliation of Institutions completed the annual inspection of affiliate colleges.
Officials said that most of the new seats added this year belonged to Computer Science and allied subjects. Seven new colleges have applied for affiliation this year. The inspection is likely to be over by July 4 and a report is likely to be released the next day. Tamil Nadu has a total of 2,65,594 engineering seats in Anna University and its affiliated institutions.
Published – July 01, 2026 11:23 pm IST